Dr. James L. Snyder
In December of last year, our second great-grandchild entered our family. Our first great-grandchild was a boy, and this one is a girl.
Like all our children, grandchildren and great-grandson, this great-granddaughter was a blessing to our family. If only children would stay young for the rest of their life! I have learned that the thing is to enjoy them while they are young.
Being retired, we have more time to spend with our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I’m sure this is one of the great blessings that our Heavenly Father bestows upon us.
Because the mother of this great-grandchild, our granddaughter, is a working nurse, she went back to work following her maternity leave. That being the case, the grandma (mother) and great-grandma daycare operation kicked in.
These relationships get confusing, and I try to keep them separated. Still, the grandmother, our daughter, is also a working nurse and therefore does not have that much time for the daycare operation.
The great-grandmother, which is the Matriarch-Hierarchy, has more time for the daycare operation. That means the great-granddaughter is in our home quite often during the week.
I was pretty pleased with this arrangement and was glad to have a little great-granddaughter in our home as much as possible. Of course, you can never have too many of these little great-granddaughters.
After a few weeks I began to understand life as it is; I assumed things, but not always understanding, how they came into being.
At our family gathering, the new great-granddaughter was there and we were having our family dinner. Then something began to happen that at first, I did not quite understand, but later began to comprehend the whole issue in a different light.
The little great-granddaughter was sleeping in her bassinet in one of our bedrooms. We were chatting around the table, and then suddenly, we heard it.
Waa, Waa, Waa, Waa, Waa.
Being a man, I didn’t quite understand what that noise was about. All of the ladies around the table got up and marched back to the bedroom with the little baby crying.
In a few moments, they all came out, and one was holding the baby while the rest were following. They all gathered in the living room, and I watched as they passed the baby around, and everybody had a chance to hold her.
It wasn’t long before that little Princess stopped crying. And if I saw that right, if not smiling, at least she was snickering. At first, I did not quite understand what that was all about.
That was just the beginning.
Whenever The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage babysat the great-grandbaby, I noticed a similar routine.
The great-grandmother got the great-grandbaby settled down, fed her, then quietly take her back, and put her in the bassinet in the bedroom. She fell asleep, and the great-grandmother tiptoed out of the bedroom and went to the kitchen to resume her work.
Then came that familiar sound from the bedroom.
Waa, Waa, Waa, Waa, Waa.
Before the second “Waa” got out, the great-grandmother turned her back on the kitchen and scooted back into the bedroom to bow before the great-granddaughter.
As she brought the little baby out, the baby looked at me and gave me one of her snickers. I am not sure, but I think she winked at me. Just do not let this get back to the great-grandmother.
So the great-grandmother cared for the baby, rocked it, and did everything babies need at that stage of life.
She finally went to sleep, and The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage took the baby back to its bassinet to sleep for a little while.
When she came back, I was tempted, but I did not yield to that temptation, to ask her what all that crying was about. I was tempted, but I did not yield to that temptation, to tell her what I thought was going on.
It did not take long for the little Princess to do it all over again.
Waa, Waa, Waa, Waa, Waa.
Again, the great-grandmother dropped what she was doing and went back, got the baby out of the bassinet, brought her out, and fixed up a bottle for her lunch. So all the time, the little baby was smiling and giggling and then looking at me and winked; it seemed that way, at least from my perspective.
What I saw was the little Princess taking charge of her environment. How someone that young could know how to manipulate her environment is well beyond me. I should take a few notes from her.
Then I began thinking that perhaps this was the little Princess preparing to be a wife and mother, with the emphasis on the wife. If that is true, she has a great start at that.
I wonder what it is going to be like when this little Princess graduates to a teenager. Those are going to be the days, and I’m looking forward to them.
As I was pondering this situation I could not help but think of what that wise old man, Solomon, said in, Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
That wise old man understood that what a child becomes is a result of training. Too often the child dominates the training chair which predicts what happens when that child is old.
Dr. James L. Snyder lives in Ocala, FL with the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage. Telephone 1-352-216-3025, e-mail jamessnyder51@gmail.com, website www.jamessnyderministries.com.
